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Adriana Pulla
Age: 15
Grade: 10
Favourite part of workshop: Going on a long bike ride with other members of the class when their bikes are finished.
Type of bike: A dark red Velosport road bike.
What will you use it for? Biking with her friend to Hamilton on the Waterfront Trail.
(Cole Burston / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Alma Ahmed
Age: 15
Grade: 10
Favourite part of workshop: Learning how to pump a tire, laughing with her best friend, and getting to know the other students.
Type of bike: A dark raspberry frame with white tires, and pink brake wires.
What will you use it for? To bike to school, taking advantage of bike lanes on her route from her home in Regent Park to her Jarvis Collegiate Institute classroom.
(Cole Burston / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Lynn Nguyen
Age: 17
Grade: Recently graduated high school.
Favourite part of workshop: Learning new things and how to fix her bike herself.
Type of bike: A silver cruiser, nicknamed “tin man” because it’s so rusty, with lime green brake wires.
What will you use it for? Biking around Don Valley.
(Cole Burston / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Nathalie Pulla Abasto
Age: 16
Grade: 12
Favourite part of workshop: Doing the wiring and learning how brakes work.
Type of bike: A blue road bike.
What will you use it for? Biking to school on late start days, and maybe biking to the Beach on the weekends.
(Cole Burston / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

By May WarrenStaff Reporter

Tues., Sept. 29, 2015

Lynn Nguyen will soon head to the Don Valley with a new friend she’s named after a certain famous Wizard of Oz character.

“I call him Tin Man because he’s so rusty,” said the seventeen-year-old with a laugh, adjusting the tires on a silver cruiser with lime green brake wiring she’s been working on for a month.

Nguyen’s old bike was stolen this summer but thanks to a build a bike workshop for girls and trans youth in her Regent Park neighbourhood, she will soon be back on two wheels.

“I love to learn and experiment with things so if there’s any opportunity I just grab it,” she said of the program, which she attended on Wednesday and Thursday nights this September along with seven others.

“Also, if I break down I don’t want to yell for a guy. I want to try to be able to do it myself as much as I can before I ask someone else’s’ help.”

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The free program is organized by Charlie’s FreeWheels, a non-profit that hosts build a bike classes from its Queen St. E. location.

Students in the girls and trans class pick out old frames from the racks of used Raleighs and Fujis in the basement and build them from the ground up, with new parts, funded through grants and donations.

The bikes have been in accidents, or are abandoned at condos, tired and ready for the young people to breathe new life into them. Each class includes a Halal meal and participants leave with not only bikes, but helmets, locks, lights, bells and safety lessons.

Katherine McIlveen-Brown, director of FreeWheels, said the program is aimed at building the next generation of cyclists, which they want to be inclusive of everyone.

“Women are still the minority in the cycling world,” she added, noting statistics from the city that show 65 per cent of people who ride a bicycle to work in Toronto are male and only 35 per cent female.

Ainsley Naylor, who acts as chief bike mechanic and teacher, said keeping the class “dude” free, creates a safe space for girls and non-gender conforming kids who might otherwise not be exposed to tools and may be intimidated just walking in to a bike shop.

“The hope is to engage people, to give them some tools and empower them and make them more comfortable,” she said, at work installing a fork on a purple beach cruiser.

The students are also taught by women and trans people.

“They feel like they’re not going to be judged because they’re learning from another woman, there’s a different layer of respect,” Naylor said.

“For many women and trans people a bike can be the safest way to move around, at night or when travelling alone, and can represent control and independence,” she added.

“At Charlie’s, giving them a bike means they don’t have to wait for their parents to come and pick them up somewhere or it’s easier for them to get to a friends house,” Naylor said.

“Freedom of movement is really important and empowering and creates independence as well.”

Alma Ahmed plans to cruise to classes this fall on a new raspberry ride with white tires and pink brake wiring that she’s almost finished.

“It’s something very unique,” said the fifteen-year-old of the program. “You don’t see build a bike places everywhere and it’s not something that’s so mainstream.”

Working alongside her best friend, Ahmed said she learned simple things that will stick with her, such as how to pump a tire.

“Normally in my house we just kept on pumping until we could feel the tire tight. When I learned that at that side of the wheel there’s a specific number you’re supposed to pump it to, that was something really fascinating,” she said.

“Next time I’ll know exactly what to do.”

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